Mark9

It was atrocious when I first started working on it in 2005. It just needs something more then the odd repaint.

Paultons is one of the UK's premier family parks Matt, it's a fantastic place to visit and feels like it has a soul. Thanks for the trip report, I love Paultons. =)

I only hope they decide to run more then one car on Speed if they must insist on going down the fastrack route.

I've always thought that coaster looked cool.

It's all very well but it doesn't explain why Merlin have gone for three wing riders. There is literally nothing attention grabbing about Heide's new one for example. It's theme isn't special, it's not the tallest, it's not the fastest, it's not the worlds first or even European first.

Most of the original props were either recycled for the current incarnation, chucked in a skip or salvaged by enthusiastic managers. I for instance own this:- so the likelihood of the Original Bubbleworks ever returning in some form is really, really unlikely

According to RCDB, Piraten is 101 foot tall. I'd really be up for Thorpe getting something like it, maybe even the Mack version. The ride just packs such a punch for something so little.

1. Thorpe Park, Annual Pass day 2011. Park ran out of food, very very busy and had for some reason queued 2 and a half hours for Storm Surge. Never again. 2. Thorpe Park, Saw open day 2009. Stealth, Saw (open for an hour), Slammer, Rumba and Loggers closed all day. Poor Inferno having to do all the work. On both occasions left after about an hour. 3. Bakken. Miserable amusement park with terrible rides. Lasted two hours.

The Red train.

Being essentially a Piraten clone, I'd expect nothing less. With Mack trains though..

No thank you.

Hanging with my Oscar friends

For Toby that's quite a low number actually Love your Avatar by the way Toby, Katun

They should just stick with aiming to be number one for attendance. They will never match the quality of a Disney product if they continue building things like Angry Bird Land or Scorpion Express. Hell they can't even match the majority of quality parks in Europe, they haven't a chance of catching Disney.

Luckily, no one on heres considers Thorpe a world class player. The thing is right, for the majority of people they go "I don't like the hotel" and move on their thoughts to things they do like. When it comes to the Crash Pad and the Thorpe Shark Hotel, People get deep feelings of hate over it, like it personally offends them. You've already said that there's loads of other places to stay near by so what is the point in getting so worked up over it. Of course, the only world class players I see you've listed is Disney and Universal. PortAventura runs their park dreadfully, Alton Towers needs serious work to get it to any good standard and Six Flags... well is Six Flags.

As a few people have said there did used to be targets at Chessington but it was rarely ever enforced. I can remember in my first season working at Chessington, there were quite a few park competitions. Fury used to compete with Spinball on an hourly throughput, same with the two Runaway Trains. Unfortunately it's all gone with the wind now, but it used to really get staff motivated to work efficiently.

I'm one of those exceptions that really likes floorless rides. I don't think Thorpe need it particularly. There's definitely enough looping coasters at the park now for sure. (There's also Dæmonen at Tivoli and if we were being really pedantic, Krake at Heide has floor less seating)

Correct me if I'm wrong Vortex workers, but the cycles are longer in the morning due to the cold motor. Once it warms up its far more efficient at slowing the ride and reducing the amount of swings you get.

Considering this thing is a year late, if they decided log flumes was the thing to build, they might want to plan them better in future.

It's doubly worse for Heide as the competition in Germany is so much more then say the UK or in Italy with Gardaland. I'm sure that explains why Heide continually gets these frequent but lazy investments. My main concern though is how Merlin seem committed to making Heide and Gardaland so similar. There are strong rumours that Garda will be getting a Dive Machine for next season; just seems so irrelevant when that park needs something more like Juvelen or a Mack coaster.

So this opened yesterday and based on a few reviews I've read, despite looking interesting and being very photogenic, the ride completely loses momentum after the first drop and camelback hill. Shame but not unexpected.

The IP might not age but those day glo-painted buildings will look pretty poor in a years time.

It's going to be amazing. You heard it here first.

Yeah, families with babies and toddlers love massive launching roller coasters. If the advert just featured the Banana Ride and the Carousel I'd agree but the only none thrilling rides in that video is Depth Charge and Rumba; The Swarm and Stealth certainly dominate that advert.

Baco is still the worst ride of all time.